Public Opinion - Nixon and the vietnam war

When Richard Nixon became president in 1969, he vowed not to make the
mistakes his predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, had made in conducting foreign
policy. In particular, he was most concerned with the way some elements in
the public had affected Johnson's policies in Southeast Asia
through telegenic mass demonstrations and other dissenting actions of
their anti–Vietnam War movement. Foreign policy should not be made
in the street, he and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger,
insisted. They wanted to demonstrate that they could operate just as their
foes did in the communist bloc, unencumbered by domestic opinion.

On 15 July 1969, Nixon sent the North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh a
secret ultimatum that demanded, in effect: Soften your negotiating
position for ending the war in Vietnam by 1 November or face a new and
potentially devastating military escalation in the war. Soon after, White
House security aides began considering a variety of options that would
mete out punishment if Ho failed to meet the president halfway. At the
time that Nixon sent his ultimatum, the antiwar movement was relatively
dormant, giving the new president a brief honeymoon while he fulfilled his
campaign promise to bring the war in Vietnam to a speedy conclusion. When
this did not happen by that summer, activists began to plan for a new
series of demonstrations against the war. On 15 October 1969, protesters
held their largest and most successful antiwar action of the entire war,
the Moratorium. In a decentralized series of mostly quite dignified and
decorous demonstrations, marches, and prayer vigils, more than two million
Americans in some 200 cities took time off from work or school to send the
message to Washington that they were displeased with the pace of
withdrawal from Vietnam. More important for Nixon, the tone was liberal,
not radical, the participants more middle-class adults than hippies. Even
Lyndon Johnson's chief negotiator at the Paris peace talks, the
distinguished diplomat W. Averell Harriman, took part in the ceremonies.
And Moratorium leaders promised another such demonstration every month
until the war in Vietnam ended.

Nixon was astonished by the breadth and depth of antiwar sentiment. When
the North Vietnamese called his bluff and failed to respond to his
ultimatum on 1 November, he decided not to go through with any of the
retaliatory "savage blows" planned by his aides. Although
the vast support for the Moratorium was not the only reason why he chose
not to escalate, it weighed heavily with him. Indeed, it compelled him to
go on the offensive against the antiwar movement, beginning with his
celebrated Silent Majority speech of 3 November and with a concurrent
campaign against the allegedly antiwar liberal media, spearheaded by Vice
President Spiro T. Agnew. When the time came again to escalate, Nixon
hoped to neutralize if not destroy those who disagreed in public with his
policies in Vietnam.